Medieval fantasy inn map

Since my map of the Nightfall Lodge became quite popular I though I’d expand a bit on it and create a “template” inn map. Use it to create your own inn, tavern or lodge for your fantasy campaign.

I’ve added top-down maps/floor plans for the floors above the surface. Whatever is going on below you’ll have to come up with on your own šŸ™‚

Feel free to download and print this map. I’ve intentionally left some blank space on it for you to add your own notes. The sign is also left empty for you to fill in with a hairy pig, drunken beaver or whatever other colorful representation you want to give your inn.

Free download link

Here’s the download link. The file is a 300 dpi png image in a4 format, so should be quite suitable for printing.

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How to create a D&D campaign world – a step-by-step guide

A wonderful and inspiring part of the roleplaying game hobby is worldbuilding, however many dungeon masters feel itā€™s a daunting task to create their own campaign world. In this guide I will do my best to outline my method of building fantasy worlds. I hope it will help you by making worldbuilding more inspiring and less of a chore.

My core worldbuilding philosophy: start small and expand

In my opinion the biggest mistake many worldbuilders do is biting off more than they can chew. If you create a huge world map and then try to fill it with everything that could possibly exist in a world you tend to either overwork yourself and lose interest, or stretch your imagination too far and end up with something quite bland ā€œlike butter scraped over too much breadā€.

Not only does ā€œstarting bigā€ risk draining your inspiration, it is also (most of the time) unnecessary. A typical adventuring party in a quasi-medieval D&D campaign wonā€™t visit every far corner of the world, and even if they do this is not something you need to plan out years in advance.

A campaign world isnā€™t necessarily a ā€œworldā€. It might not even be a country. It might start out as just a small town and its immediate surroundings. We could call it a ā€œcampaign environmentā€. It might or might not develop into a world but for starters letā€™s concentrate on what you need rather than what you might need in the future.

What you need is a playground for your playersā€™ first few adventures.

A list of things that you probably need to know right now:

  • The overall theme or genre (high/low/dark fantasy, steampunk, etc.)
  • What monsters lurk in the woods just north of town
  • The name of the local innkeeper and some other important NPCs
  • The most relevant deity in your starting region, and how it is worshipped

A list of things you probably donā€™t need to know right now:

  • The name of the king in a neighbouring country
  • What lies beyond the sea or the mountains far to the west
  • Every significant faction in the country and how they interact with each other
  • Details on every organized religion in the world

Creating your homebrew campaign world – a step-by-step guide

Step 1 – the overland map

Create an overland map or get one online. A few (7-10 or so) hexagons of terrain will do. Each hex is 6 miles. Fill the hexes with the general type of terrain you want for your theatre. Woods, mountains, grasslands, hills, moor, swamps, etc. Add a few interesting landmarks.

Note: you donā€™t need to use hexes if you donā€™t like them. I find them really useful for making maps and tracking both travel and exploration in a campaign, but if you prefer to measure distance differently go right ahead and choose another method.

Fourtower Bridge Hex Map

Step 2 – the starting town

Create a small town and a handful of non-player characters (NPCs). Some of these NPCs need help with stuff, and they need adventurers to take care of their problems. The NPCs are some of the best roleplaying tools you have to shape your campaign and influence players/player characters.

Here’s a town you can use if you don’t want to create one from scratch: Link to Fourtower Bridge.

The Bulette's Barrel inn - isometric map
“Meet the locals” – the inn is often a central location for roleplaying in a fantasy campaign. A great place for the players to learn more about the world.

Step 3 – adventure sites

Make up a few adventure sites and connect some of them to the NPCs in town. A deserted mine, a desecrated temple, a ruined old tower, a brigand hideout, etc. Draw some simple location maps and mark the sites on your overland map. Place treasure and monsters.

Note: You don’t have to make up all of these adventure sites from scratch. There are plenty of free resources online, or you could buy short adventures from websites like DriveThruRPG.com. You can also find a lot of free maps and adventure sites on this website, for example The Haunted Cloister, that can easily be dropped into most fantasy campaigns.

Top-down dungeon map of a druid's cave
The druid’s cave is a small adventure site, perfect for an evening of gaming

Step 4 – build your world by playing in it

Start playing. The player characters are a bunch of adventurers in search of gold and glory. They arrive in town and have just enough money to spend the night at the inn. Drop rumours on them. Let townsfolk seek their aid. And then let them decide what to do next.

Breathe life into your little world but don’t plan everything ahead. Roll on random tables. You deserve to be surprised just as much as the players do. Between games always keep a notepad with you. Write down cool stuff you come up with. Inject it into your campaign. As you come up with new places to explore, draw new hexagons or add to existing ones on your overland map.

Ask the players what they want to do. Let them inspire you as you expand on the overland map. What do they look for, and how can they get it? What lies beyond the mountains in the west? What’s the origin of the strange idol they found in the abandoned mine?

Build as you go. Make stuff up. Allow yourself to get surprised. Use free stuff from the community. Work with your players. Build a world – not a story. You don’t need an endgame yet (if ever). You have a lot to discover, so enjoy the ride.

Bonus tools: random tables and rumours

Random encounter tables

Random encounter tables have been a staple of fantasy roleplaying games for many years. They are not just relics of old, but actually really good tools for worldbuilding that animate your world and make it feel more dynamic. By creating random encounter tables you define what creatures inhabit an area of your world and you make it significant. The probability of encountering a certain type of creature tells a lot about your world.

If thereā€™s a high risk of encountering orcs in your campaign environment it should be reflected in the encounter tables, letā€™s have a look at an example:

Random encounter table – west moorland road

Roll 2d6

2-6No encounter
7-8Merchant caravan
9-10Orc raiding party (2d6 orcs)
11Troll
12 Hill giant

What does the above random encounter table tell us about the campaign environment? Well, first of all it seems commerce and travel is a thing in this part of the world – thereā€™s a fair chance of bumping into merchants. We also learn that orcs seem to be the dominant non-human race in the area, and that theyā€™re on the prowl making travel risky (but not risky enough to fully deter humans from travelling). There are also more powerful monsters (trolls and hill giants) lurking nearby, but apparently theyā€™re not common enough to outcompete the orcs – perhaps they are allies? Itā€™s just a simple table, but all of the above are important and defining elements of your worldbuilding.

Remember that you can have random tables for more things than encounters, such as weather and other types of events. For example, a random weather table tells a lot about the climate in your campaign environment. If youā€™re aiming for an occult feel to your campaign perhaps a table of mystic omens would make sense to create.

Rumours

The Internet doesnā€™t exist in a fantasy medieval world, and the adventurers canā€™t google ā€œnearby adventure sites and treasureā€. Rumours are perhaps the most common source of information and will play an important role in determining how the players will decide on what to do in your world. They do not know about the old tower ruin two hexes to the north unless you somehow tell them about it, so creating such rumours for them to pick up when interacting with NPCs is a good way of helping them learn about the world beyond the hex theyā€™re currently exploring. Again: The NPCs are some of the best roleplaying tools you have to shape your campaign and influence players/player characters. Plant rumours to guide players without forcing them in a certain direction.

Not all rumours are (nor should be) true. Some have just grains of truth in them, and some are just nonsense. However all of them help bring your world to life.


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Hand-drawn character sheet for Dungeons & Dragons

Here’s a free, hand-drawn character sheet for use with Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert and its many modern OSR clones like Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord.

Feel free to download and print this character sheet, but please if you wish to share it digitally I really appreciate if you link to this page rather than saving the file and publishing it elsewhere.

Descending AC and THAC0 or Ascending AC?

The character sheet is avaliable in two versions. One for use with the the original rules where a low AC is better than a high one, and attack rolls are handled with THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0). The other verision of the sheet is for use with the optional rule of ascending armor class (AAC) which is more familiar to players of later editions of the game, and is perhaps the most widely adopted house rule in OSR games.

If you use descending AC and THAC0: Click here or in the image below to download the character sheet as a pdf-file.

If you use ascending AC: Click here to download the AAC version of the sheet as a pdf-file.

Dungeons & Dragons character sheet thumbnail
Click on image to download character sheet (pdf)

Support my work – buy me a beer (if you want)

If you like my stuff and want to give me a tip to cheer me on, please click the button below.

Please note that tipping is appreciated, but not expected. Don’t donate if you’re short on cash, I’m sharing content because I like to, not to make money.

More free resources

Old-school armory expanded – fantasy medieval melee weapons

I wanted to expand on the Old-school Armory with some weapons that are not in the original Basic/Expert edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The purpose of this illustration is to provide the Dungeon Master with some more visuals for popular medieval melee weapons to provide extra flavor to their campaign. Feel free to add suitable stats!

  • Morningstar
  • Flail
  • Horseman’s Pick
  • Falchion
  • Dwarven Spear

300 dpi print version

Here’s a version of the drawing that is suitable for print (click image for full size):

Old school armory advanced print version

Even MORE weapons!

As a little bonus, I’m adding a drawing of some grisly, primitive looking weapons. These instruments of war would be suitable for barbarians, goblinoids or orcs. Ghastly things!

Grisly and brutal troll weapons

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If you like my stuff and want to give me a tip to cheer me on, please click the button below.

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Retainer sheet for D&D B/X and Old-School Essentials

This retainer sheet is made for use with Old-School Essentials and other OSR games based on Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert. Please feel free to download and print it for personal use.

Note: if you use ascending armor class and attack bonus, just use the field for THAC0 to indicate the retainer’s attack bonus value.

The checkboxes doesn’t serve a specific purpose. I added them because it’s always nice to have checkboxes, right? You can use them to track rations, torches or any other type of relevant resource.

Looking for a full character sheet?

Check out my hand-drawn character sheet for D&D B/X based games here!

Support my work through Ko-fi (if you want)

Let me be very clear: the content on this website is free for personal use, and it will stay that way. That said, I sometimes get questions if there’s any way to support my work. If you insist on giving me a tip my Ko-Fi account is https://ko-fi.com/pathspeculiar. This will make me very happy, but is not expected!

The Old-School Armory – weapon illustrations

For some reason I’ve never outgrown weapon illustrations in roleplaying games. As a youngling I usually flipped right to the equipment chapter when picking up a new game, fantasizing about gearing up for adventure.

Some of the early versions of D&D (as well as some of it’s modern clones) sadly lack weapon illustrations. Therefore I took it upon me to hand-draw a chart for dungeon masters to print and hand out to their players.

I hope you will enjoy this onepager, illustrating all the weapons in the equipment list of D&D B/X, released in 1981. Of course it should serve as inspiration for any quasi-medieval fantasy roleplaying game. I myself intend to use it for Old-School Essentials which is an amazing B/X close.

Do you want more of this?

For more weapons, check out the expanded Old-School Armory for weapons like the flail and morningstar.

Support my work – buy me a Ko-fi (if you want)

Let me be very clear: the content on this website is free for personal use, and it will stay that way. That said, I sometimes get questions if there’s any way to support my work. If you insist on giving me a tip my Ko-Fi account is ko-fi.com/pathspeculiar This will make me very happy, but is not expected!